Patch 3.7: Separate MMR Per Race

If you’ve ever wanted to play on the 1v1 StarCraft II ladder as a different race than you normally would without impacting the ranking of your “main” race, you’ll soon be able to do exactly that. Patch 3.7 brings a highly anticipated feature for StarCraft II multiplayer: separate rankings for each race you play on the ladder!

When we initially set out in developing StarCraft II, we expected a majority of players would want to focus on playing as only one race. However, thanks to the feedback of our players and community leaders, it became clear that many people want to experience the ladder as other races without affecting the rank and MMR of their “main” race. Patch 3.7 will make it possible to do exactly that for all of your ranked 1v1 matches, and we’re extremely excited to get the feature into your hands!

What to Expect

When you first login after Patch 3.7 is applied, there will be a new season for which you will need to play five (5) placement matches before being placed for any given race, even if you placed into the ladder with that race during the previous season. This will ensure that players who played as multiple races prior to this patch can receive accurate rankings for each individual race.

As you complete your placement matches, you’ll receive a ranking for each of the race options. This rank is completely unaffected by any games you play as another race option, including ‘Random’. We’ve opted to give the Random race option it’s very own ranking as well, since people can identify with being “a random player” and we wanted to preserve the meaning and value behind choosing this race option.

How it all Works

A question we also had to address in implementing this feature was how to determine a good starting-place for each player’s MMR. To do this, we will be starting the MMR of each off-race at the same MMR of your main race, and set each player to have high “uncertainty” (in the past we have referred to this as the “New Player Logic”). This will allow MMR values to shift more drastically for the first several games as each race. Over time, this “uncertainty” value will decrease, causing MMR values to stabilize alongside rankings.

At the end of the season, season rewards will be granted according to the highest rank you achieve across all race options. These rewards will be displayed in your profile the same as they currently are.

Also, if you do not play a ranked game as a specific race for four (4) seasons, your MMR and rank for that race will be reset at the start of the 5th season. This reset already exists on ladder and so normally would not merit being mentioned, however it will now be applied individually to each of the race options, so we wanted to point this out.

Grandmaster Ranks

In adding separate rankings for each race, we had to determine how we would handle the Grandmaster ranks, and decide whether a player could be in Grandmaster for multiple races simultaneously.

After some consideration, we felt that the best initial direction would be to allow this to occur. The races in StarCraft II are considerably unique in both mechanics and strategy, and so we expect that achieving Grandmaster as more than one race to be a rather appreciable accomplishment. We also intend to increase the Grandmaster activity requirement from 10 games every 3 weeks to 30 games every 3 weeks. Consequently, it will be even more of an achievement to reach Grandmaster with multiple races.

We hope that this decision leads to certain players being well-known for being Grandmaster as multiple races, and that this accomplishment is as rare and impressive as we expect it to be.

Conclusion

We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the addition of separate race rankings! Let us know your reactions and feedback in the comments section below, and look for our replies both here and in our weekly Community Feedback Updates. We’ll continue to monitor how these changes are working out in the game, and look forward to your feedback!